Colorado River Loop

May 2, 2021

Today we wanted to see what we could of the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument and we thought it’d be fun to show Jane’s brother and sister-in-law, Jon and Nancy, some of the sites we’d enjoyed in the area. Our route, about 200 miles, is pictured below.

A spot new to all of us was the Paria [rhymes with Maria] Ghost Town at the highest point on the route highlighted in red. The town site is at the end of a seven mile dirt road and across the Paria River. We never found the ruins, even though Jon flew the area with his drone and Jane waded the river. Not getting there, though, was lots of beautiful.

Settlement of Paria was first attempted in 1865, but it was abandoned in 1929, largely because of flooding.

After more gorgeous scenery, we introduced Jon and Nancy to Lake Powell, the Glen Canyon Dam, and the city of Page (just off the map on the far right). Lunch was at Big John’s Texas BBQ. Some silliness might have been involved.

Early afternoon found us at Navajo Bridge where Dave and Jane each discovered a new perspective on the two bridges. Their respective pictures were quite similar.

We also found new pictures at Lee’s Ferry–just two days after we were last there.

The rest of the loop back to Kanab included a climb to almost 8,000 feet in the Kaibab National Forest where the temperature was 26 degrees cooler than it had been at Lee’s Ferry. We didn’t stop for pictures because we were racing to get to cell service so we could purchase shuttle tickets for tomorrow’s trip to Zion National Park. Hopefully the pictures from there will make up for anything we missed in today’s entry.